¶ Technical data
- Manufacturer: Nintendo
- Year of release: 1998 (October in Japan, November in North America and Europe)
- Units sold: 118.69 millions (Game Boy and Game Boy Color combined)
- Best-selling game: Pokémon Gold and Silver
- CPU: Sharp LR35902 8-bit, 4.19 MHz or 8.38 MHz in double-speed mode
- RAM: 32 KB of main memory, 16 KB of VRAM
- Screen: 160x144 colour LCD, palette of 32,768 colours, up to 56 colours displayed at once
- Sound: 4 channels, identical to the Game Boy ones
- Media: cartridge, backward compatible with Game Boy games
- Power: 2 AA batteries
¶ Presentation
The Game Boy Color is the colour update of the Game Boy, released by Nintendo in October 1998, almost ten years after the original model. It keeps the same 8-bit architecture and the same screen resolution, but adds a colour LCD, doubles the processor clock on demand from the games and quadruples the main memory. More compact and needing only two AA batteries, it remains backward compatible with the entire Game Boy library, which it automatically colourises using predefined palettes.
Three kinds of cartridges coexist: classic Game Boy games (grey), "compatible" games (black) which run on both machines and gain colours on the Color, and Game Boy Color exclusive games (transparent), which refuse to boot on an original Game Boy. This smooth transition let the console rely on a huge catalogue from day one.
Its short career — it was replaced by the Game Boy Advance as early as 2001 — still made room for major titles such as Pokémon Gold and Silver, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, Wario Land 3 and Metal Gear Solid. Technically, several of these games pushed the little machine much further than its original processor suggested.
¶ Emulators
New in Recalbox 10.1: netplay has been reworked (online play, synchronisation mode) and the GameLink mode is enabled, reproducing the Link cable between two consoles.
Emulator availability per board:
| Emulator | RPI3/RPI02W | RPI4/400 | RPI5/500 | OGA/OGS/RG351 | PC | RG353 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Libretro Gambatte | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro TGBDual | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro mGBA | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro SameBoy | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro Mesen_S | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Libretro bsnes | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
Mesen_S is missing on the RPi3 and RPi Zero 2, and bsnes is offered on PC only (it is declared for that board alone in the code); the other four cores are available everywhere.
Gambatte is the emulator used by default: it is a reference for accuracy on Game Boy Color, and the only core in the list that declares CRT display support. TGBDual emulates two consoles connected by the Link cable and therefore allows two-player sessions. Netplay is supported by TGBDual, mGBA and SameBoy. Softpatching (automatic application of .ips, .bps and similar patches) works with Gambatte, TGBDual, mGBA and Mesen_S, but not with SameBoy. RetroAchievements are supported on this system.
¶ BIOS
No BIOS is needed to play: the three files below are optional and only reproduce the original boot sequence (the Nintendo logo and its jingle) and the exact behaviour of the machine at startup.
| File name | Description | MD5 | Emulators |
|---|---|---|---|
gbc_bios.bin |
Game Boy Color BIOS (optional) | dbfce9db9deaa2567f6a84fde55f9680 | mGBA, Gambatte, Mesen_S |
cgb_boot.bin |
Game Boy Color boot ROM (optional, several revisions accepted) | b560efd759d87634a03b243f22bba27a, 6b68be48dab6a7298a8c07e00c136b4e, 62cfda90d22405cdff59700c388a57f6 | SameBoy, Mesen_S |
agb_boot.bin |
Boot ROM of the Game Boy Advance's Game Boy Color mode (optional) | 8e29ae4f331830d54ae764f3e10cebae | SameBoy |
Place your BIOS files like this:
/recalbox/share/bios/gbc/
├── gbc_bios.bin
├── cgb_boot.bin
└── agb_boot.bin
¶ Roms
Put your games in:
/recalbox/share/roms/gbc/
Supported extensions per emulator:
| Emulator | Extensions |
|---|---|
| Gambatte | .bin .gb .gbc .zip .7z |
| TGBDual | .bin .cgb .gb .gbc .sgb .zip .7z |
| mGBA | .bin .gb .gbc .sgb .zip .7z |
| SameBoy | .bin .gb .gbc .zip .7z |
| Mesen_S | .gb .gbc .zip .7z |
No-Intro romsets are recommended: one file per game, cleanly named, which makes scraping much easier. Games can stay compressed as .zip or .7z, with a single game per archive.
The cores also accept the
.gbextension here: monochrome games placed inroms/gbc/will be colourised automatically, just like on the original console. To keep both libraries separate, prefer storing your Game Boy games in the Game Boy system.